future

LG Display has set the production clock ticking for a plastic EPD (electronic paper display) product which in turn is expected to set e-book marketability fast-forward. In an announcement Thursday, Korea-based LG Display, which manufactures thin film transistor liquid crystal display, said it has already started up mass production of EPD for e-books. That leaves little guesswork as to the form factor and no suspicions that LG Display might instead be sending out vapor about a futuristic project that is still in R&D.
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The company maintains that this will help “greatly popularize” the e-book market,” in the words of Sang Duck Yeo, who heads operations for LG Display’s Mobile/OLED division. The panel features an XGA 1024 by 768-pixel resolution. LG assures that the new screen offers a paper-compatible reading experience. The company says that “As EPD gets thinner, lighter, and more durable with the introduction of plastic…

Image courtesy of the Kingston Whig Standard. Michael Lea The Whig-Standard Archivists Heather Home, left, and Jeremy Heil haul out an old Macintosh computer on which useful information is still stored at the Queen's University archives.

E-archivists are nothing short of miracle workers. They use their information retrieval/detective skills to not only understand past, present, and (possibly) future technologies, but the plausible migrations between them AND how to better train future generations on how to maintain sufficient preservation logistics onward. In order for any of this to succeed, frustrations need to be turned into problems that can be solved.

This interesting article by Wayne Grady from the Kingston Whig Standard highlights some heroes at the Queens University Archives and their thoughts and practices as they attempt to move away from a preservation stalemate into a system that creates open access despite the lack of print documentation. Although the topics discussed within are not altogether new to the movement, it’s important to understand that each repository’s experience is unique, and that no matter how small the collection, we can all learn from each other’s struggles (and successes)!

Librarians, how are YOU dealing with your e-collections?

Non-Librarians, do you find yourself saving more, or changing the way you maintain your own collections of digital music, documents, or photos?